Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage. In fact, the pain is a stressor and environment challenge that requires an organism to respond. It is a specific emotion, caused by a stimulus that reflects homeostatic behavioral drive, similar to temperature, itching, hunger, thirst and the like. It may be categorized according to various factors, including type of damage, time for healing and the like. Experience of the pain varies from person to person due to inter-individual variability. Moreover, intensity of the pain varies from cause to cause in the individual. Thus, pain management is an extremely important issue.
In the present scenario, a method which has gained a great amount of attention in field of biomedical technology is virtual reality therapy. Many medical professionals have started to make use of a virtual reality environment for treating patients suffering from the pain. The virtual reality environment is an artificial environment created using computer systems and sensory simulation devices including visual displays, audio, motion devices and the like. The medical professionals immerse the patients in a virtual reality by using a virtual reality system. Moreover, the virtual reality system combines two or three dimensional images with audio stimuli for creating the virtual reality environment. The virtual reality environment is produced by utilizing a graphic generating computer, a head mounted display with a tracking device, sensory input devices and the like.
The virtual reality systems have been around for a long time. In addition, the virtual reality systems have found various applications in the field of health care and the pain management. The virtual reality systems are used for various medical applications such as computer aided surgery, wheel chair with the virtual reality system, repetitive strain injury and the like. The concept of virtual reality technology was first used for treatment of acrophobia in 1993. Moreover, in the present time, one such method and system that measures the patient's emotions by using one or more sensors is HumanSim system. Another method and system allows the medical professionals to utilize the virtual reality technology for arriving at a particular diagnosis. Yet another method and system allows the medical professionals to conduct a robotic surgery by using the virtual reality technology. Yet another method and system allows the medical professionals to treat soldiers suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder by immersing the soldiers in stress due to war in the virtual reality environment. Several other present systems are known in the art that utilize the virtual reality technology for treatment of the patients. One such system is presented in U.S. Pat. No. 5,546,943 which proposes a use of the virtual reality system for allowing the patient to view their internal anatomy based on data of their medical scan. Another such method and system allows the doctors to reduce the pain of the patients by immersing the patient in a video game virtual reality environment.
The existing methods and systems for treatment of the pain of the patients using the virtual reality technology are not quite feasible. The existing methods and systems do not allow the medical professionals to measure an effect of viewing of virtual reality content on perception of the pain by the patients. Further, the existing methods and systems do not provide information relating to category or types of the patients experiencing a reduction in the pain while viewing the virtual reality content in the virtual reality environment. In addition, the existing methods and systems do not utilize one or more sensors properly for judging an effect of the virtual content on intensity of the pain of the patients. Moreover, the existing methods and systems do not provision the medical professionals to know whether the virtual reality system is truly effective for treatment of the patients or not.
In light of the above stated discussion, there is a need for a method and system that overcomes the above stated disadvantages.